Margaret grew up on her family's farm in northern Alabama, the oldest of five children and the apple of her grandmother's eye. There was no shortage of work that needed to be done, and Maggie might have been content to spend her whole life raising tending goats and hearing stories at her grandmother's knee and carrying out her parents' wishes if the family matriarch hadn't taken her aside when she was eight. Maggie's grandmother, Maude Davis, was a Mourner of Ninshubur, part of an ancient and secretive sect with members in small cells all over the world. Maude was the head of the chapter in the Eastern United States, and she hoped that one day Maggie could succeed her place in the family. She initiated her granddaughter in the mysteries of the sect and taught to her their ancient fighting arts, said to have once been passed down from the Queen of Heaven herself. When Maggie turned sixteen, her training was declared complete, and her grandmother informed her she had arranged a job placement for her with an arm of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, through a friend and member of the sect. Now at twenty-one years of age, with an apprentice of her own to teach within the Mourners, she is a rising star of the sect, and a favorite to replace her grandmother once she has a little more experience behind her.
The Mourners of Ninshubur trace their history to anicent Sumeria, and among their archives are original compositions of the hymns to Inana and the account of her Catabsis. Founded milennia ago as an apocalyptic religious sect, they have persisted to the present day with minimal alterations to their core beliefs.